Feature Story

Multi-tasking Manufacturing
By Jay Winchester
Published: September / October 2008

Charles Ferrer tags the success of CMS WorldGroup to his experiences at the 1984 Olympic Games.

The Olympics stir something deep in our souls. They awaken in many that drive to compete against the very best, to match themselves stride for stride with those striving against them and prevail, winning the gold and becoming, for that moment on that day, the greatest athlete in the world. For the rest of us, the Olympics present a stage on which to view the human struggle to overcome obstacles and achieve greatness, even if only for a moment. That is why we celebrate and are captivated by the Olympics.

Charles Ferrer, President of CMS WorldGroup (CMS), understands that drive to excel. The 1984 Olympics awakened in him a drive to push his manufacturing company beyond the norm of its marketing efforts in order to reap a greater reward. “In 1984 I had one of our companies heavily involved with the 1984 Olympics promoting our brands at the Olympic venues with a very limited budget of $250,000,” he says. “We worked hard at the grass roots level with athletes and coaches, providing more than 1,800 pairs of shoes, 5,000 t-shirts and other apparel items, 20,000 sets of playing cards, and other promotional items.” The company even went so far as to maintain an open house for all athletes and coaches with free meals, snacks, beer and wine during the 14 days of the Olympics. The aim was to gain a level of visibility for the company’s brands that it could not achieve through traditional marketing methods.

To his credit, and the admiration of entrepreneurs everywhere, the company’s Olympian efforts paid off…big time. “According to media specialists analyzing the advertising and promotional efforts at the Games, we had received over five million dollars worth of media exposure for our brands during the Olympics,” Ferrer recalls. “It was well worth spending that $250,000 budget.”

Not everything CMS undertakes involves such a huge effort. However, the same spirit that made its Olympic marketing efforts so successful is imbued into every task the company undertakes. And this is a company that makes, well, almost everything. From the Olympics story, it’s easy to guess that the company is heavily involved in manufacturing sporting goods. Visit the company’s website, click on the “Products and Services” button, select “Sporting Goods” from the link list that appears and prepare to be bombarded with a plethora of sports-related products: wetsuits and aquatics gear; tennis and table tennis racquets, paddles and equipment; fitness equipment; weight training aids; footwear; uniforms; and protective gear and apparel for most any sport from baseball to lacrosse to the martial arts.

However, if one were to guess that sporting goods is the full extent of the manufacturing services offered by CMS, one would be mistaken. CMS also makes medical and orthopedic equipment, molded plastics, and carbon fiber items. The company offers customers a full slate of manufacturing and design capabilities, including prototype and product development, packaging design and production, metals fabrication, specialized molding, shipping and logistics, U.S. Customs clearance and even shipping with “delivery to the door” pricing, with all extras included. This ensures that key costs and items such as freight, security fees, brokerage, insurance and truck deliveries are all included in the unit cost price of the goods manufactured by CMS. It is truly a value-added enterprise.

“CMS is an Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) resource company with partners owning manufacturing facilities of diverse capabilities,” Ferrer says.

“What makes us unique is the wide range of product categories we are active in. All of the products we manufacture are made to the customers’ specifications. In essence, every product CMS makes is custom made, and yet all our products are fully guaranteed against manufacturing defects and defects in the raw materials used in the manufacturing process.”

Keep in mind that, while this is a company with its headquarters and U.S. sales division here in Clearwater, Florida, CMS also maintains 13 factories, controls the output of three others and has operations in locations as diverse as North Carolina, Georgia, Puerto Rico, Taiwan, China and Pakistan. Taken all together, CMS employs over 6,000 people at its various locations.

The diversity of the company’s products and workforce reflect the diversity that characterizes Ferrer’s own life. Born in Oklahoma, he was raised in Puerto Rico and New Jersey. His father, Dr. R. A. Ferrer, is a former Commissioner of Health for the City of New York under Mayor Koch, as well as a consultant to the World Health Organization.

This familiarity with diversity has been an invaluable asset in leading and growing CMS. “Due to the diversity of my background, I was able to recruit partners into CMS, each with specific manufacturing capabilities, all of which are complementary and non-competitive with each other,” Ferrer explains. “For example, one of our partners specializes in footwear, while another excels in ball-related sports (baseball, softball, football, basketball, volleyball, etc.). Other partners specialize in apparel, cut and sew products, medical and orthopedic products, polymer molded products, and metals fabrication.”

It’s a team effort, and a team that works well together. As regards its financial standing, through the first half of this year, CMS has just surpassed its total dollar sales volume for 2007. Over the past four years, the company’s sales have grown at an average of 50 percent each year. CMS is truly a viable global concern, as well as a manufacturing force.

However, the success has not come without challenges along the way. “As with any start-up company we faced all the struggles that beset newcomers,” says Ferrer. “Just getting to the right potential customers and getting them to trust the new kid on the block was tough. And between 1982 and 1983, one of our divisions lost 90% of its sales base due to the financial turmoil existing in Latin America at that time.”

Hard work and perseverance were two qualities the company relied on during those tough times. Another was intense focus. “We made sure we would always be focused on long term goals as well as short term needs and requirements,” he recalls. “That long term focus has allowed us to be ahead of the curve in many new product trends, and has kept us pretty much recession proof due to our versatility.”

In fact, the company is currently moving ahead of the curve again in an innovative area called Adaptive Design Wear (ADW), essentially designing stylish and highly functional apparel for the wheelchair bound. CMS is working closely with Gernot Simon (ADW patent holder) on the design and patterns for the development of the ADW line. Worldwide marketing for the line as well as initial promotional activities are slated to commence in September this year.

“We are confident that major retailers, department stores and mass merchants will want to carry ADW in their stores,” says Ferrer. “The idea for the ADW line and many of the original concepts came from Colleen Simon, who is wheelchair bound. A second partner in ADW has a wife who is also wheelchair bound with Muscular Dystrophy. Both ladies have provided much input and inspiration to the line.”

Inspiration plays a large part in Ferrer’s life. An avid reader and swimmer, he operates under a dictum handed down from father to son, words of wisdom that guide both his business sense and his passion for living. “My father used to tell me that if you were going to do something, do it right and do it well, and always to the best of your ability,” he says pensively. “I strive to always follow that advice. In fact, when I get the most annoyed, it is typically when I have made a mistake, regardless of how trivial it might have been. I am driven to work hard and to win at all things.” His perfectionist tendencies and competitive zeal are balanced by his wife of 38 years, Ali. “My wife always sees the best in people,” Ferrer says. “She forces me to be more humane.”

It’s been an almost storybook existence for the former member of the U.S. Air Force who once worked as an assistant manager at a sporting goods store before getting the chance to start his own sporting goods company. Through the years, Ferrer has seen his focus shift from brand marketing to manufacturing to consulting and, eventually into his present position. “In business, as well as in my personal life, I consider myself to be the luckiest man alive,” he says. “I love what I do. You could definitely say that somebody ‘up there’ likes me.”

Still, success doesn’t come without some risk. Looking back on the success his company gained from its Olympic experience taught Ferrer that valuable lesson. “Looking back on it now, I am sure that the 22 individuals who worked those Games would all pitch in and together pay the $250,000 again, just to relive that 1984 Olympic Games experience one more time. It was truly the dream experience of a lifetime.”

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